Three ways to stop carrying iOS-shaped risk alone.
Fractional iOS leadership for European scale-ups
Predictability and continuity, not velocity or transformation. Three named, time-bounded engagements for European scale-ups: each with a clear trigger, scope, and price.
Most scale-up CTOs didn't come up through mobile. That isn't a flaw, it's why fractional iOS leadership exists. You have an iOS team, an app that matters to the business, and a roadmap with mobile on it. What you don't have is a senior iOS voice in the room when things get uncertain.
The unit being sold here is senior iOS direction: architecture decisions, technical roadmap, team coordination, hiring support, the calls a permanent iOS lead would make if you had one. Code ships as part of that, because architecture only gives value when it lives in real code. The value sits in the calls being made, not the lines written.
The shape of the engagement matters. Here are the three.
The three engagements
Each is named, scoped, and time-bounded. You buy a shape, not an open-ended consulting arrangement.
Stabilization · 12 weeks, fixed scope
Your senior iOS engineer just left
Triggered by sudden key-person loss.
Acting iOS lead for 12 weeks. Keep the lights on, support the hire, identify and grow the next tech lead from inside the team.
Investment
€55k all in
See stabilization engagement →
Delivery lead · 3–6 months
Ship the migration
Triggered by a stalled or postponed platform initiative.
Embedded delivery lead for a specific iOS platform migration: SwiftUI, modularization, Tuist, Swift Concurrency, Swift 6, CocoaPods, etc. Scope it, run it, hand off.
Investment
€9k discovery €19k/month delivery
See migration engagement →
Retainer · Ongoing, 3-month minimum
Embedded iOS lead
Triggered by the structural absence of iOS leadership.
Three days a week, on predictable days. For scale-ups with a 2–8 person iOS team and no iOS leadership in place, that aren't going to hire one in the next twelve months.
Investment
€12k/month
See embedded engagement →
How it works
Three steps between the first contact and an iOS lead embedded in your team.
- 1
30-minute scoping call
No deck, no pitch. We talk about what's actually on your plate, what shape of engagement fits, and whether I'm the right person. If I'm not, I'll point you to someone who is.
- 2
One-page written proposal
Within 48 hours of the call. Named engagement shape, scope, timeline, price, what's out of scope. Time-bounded with a risk-reversal clause: the first two weeks are at half rate, cancel any time.
- 3
Embedded with the team
Predictable days, predictable cadence. Written progress notes you can paste straight into the board update. A clean hand-off at the end of the engagement, with the next lead, the playbook, or both in place.
Why this works
Your team needs iOS native connective tissue.
Scale-ups hitting the maturity wall need someone who has seen what scalable iOS practice looks like. Five reinforcing reasons that's worth buying.
Longevity
Sixteen years of iOS since iPhone OS 3, eleven of them freelance. Most senior iOS freelancers have three to seven.
Premium-brand DNA
Audi, Porsche, Canyon, Red Bull. Long engagements, not pitch decks.
Regulated experience
Compliance constraints most scale-up engineers have never shipped in. DAK Gesundheit, German statutory health insurance. Wiener Städtische, Audi, Porsche.
The interface person
Standing translation between iOS and CTO, PM, UX, UI, backend, Android. The direct antidote to: iOS is a black box to me.
No ramp-up tax
My job is to read the room fast. No months of onboarding, no explaining the category from scratch, no agency layers adding margin without adding thinking. The work starts at the level it needs to finish.
Not a fit for
Stating this clearly is the strongest signal of premium availability. If any of these apply, we're better off not working together.
- Pre-seed founders evaluating native development for the first time.
- Enterprise procurement cycles.
- Companies that only know pressure as a management tool.
- Anyone looking for an agency that rotates engineers through the team.
30-minute scoping call
No deck, no pitch. Just a conversation about what's actually on your plate. If we're not a fit, I'll point you to someone who is.
Book a scoping call